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First test of any software dev: Do you know how to look for answers on stackoverflow? Second test of any software dev: Do you know how to ask a good question o

First test of any software dev: Do you know how to look for answers on stackoverflow? Second test of any software dev: Do you know how to ask a good question on SO?

adwww 7y ago
15 years of software engineering experience, and I don't know how to ask a question on SO without having it shut down as non-constructive, or that I should have used one of the 300 odd ultra niche sister sites. Most vendors and libraries have IRC / Slack channels which are much more welcoming.
notkaiho 7y ago
First test, part deux: Are you able to ascertain the validity of answers on StackOverflow?
- Msurrow 7y ago
  Indeed. Sort the crap from the useful fast is a nice addition.
war1025 7y ago
I've never found anything of actual use on StackOverflow in my ~decade of doing this professionally. The only time StackOverflow provided useful answers to my questions was during my first year of programming courses in university.
- Insanity 7y ago
  StackOverflow is fine when learning a new language. But indeed, hardly seems to help in real-world problems.
  - Msurrow 7y ago
    Thats why I put in the "know how to ask questions" part. Sure, a lot of the time you don't get an answer. And you end up figuring out stuff the hard way yourself. But then I always force myself to go back and answer my own question. It might help the next guy, but more importantly if I have to answer the question myself I need to put what I learned in writing.. and in an understandable way as well. Often the exercise of explaining it will make me understand even better.
  - shantly 7y ago
    It's pretty nice for "is this thing I've encountered in this (API/library/SDK/tool) with no public issue or bugtracker a bug, or am I screwing up?" sorts of questions.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    You can often progress via reading wrong answers. “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” -Thomas Edison ...and it's so much better to learn from others' failures.
- toast0 7y ago
  There's some useful information there. It sometimes takes a lot of digging, especially if you're dealing in things that have existed for a long time, but change a lot (UI stuff tends to be pretty bad, questions from 5 years ago rank highly but are nearly useless because it's three frameworks ago). Also, I was able to cargo cult an applescript accessible objective C program utility (returned the color of a specified pixel from the screenbuffer) from stackoverflow without having to actually learn anything about objective C. That was mostly because the online sources to get started on objective C weren't geared towards writing a short one off program; Apple's documentation in general is hard for me to process.
ebiester 7y ago
I'll fail, because I will check the actual documentation and the source code, then make the quickest check on SO before abandoning it for source code. SO has given me obviously wrong answers enough times that I prefer the documentation first. And the ROI on learning to game Stack Overflow isn't worth it for me. :)
avgDev 7y ago
When I'm stuck I look for answers on SO, however, if I don't find answers I open a book or read documentation. I actually never had to actually ask a question on SO.

First test of any software dev: Do you know how to look for answers on stackoverflow? Second test of any software dev: Do you know how to ask a good question on SO?

adwww 7y ago

15 years of software engineering experience, and I don't know how to ask a question on SO without having it shut down as non-constructive, or that I should have used one of the 300 odd ultra niche sister sites. Most vendors and libraries have IRC / Slack channels which are much more welcoming.

notkaiho 7y ago

First test, part deux: Are you able to ascertain the validity of answers on StackOverflow?

Msurrow 7y ago
Indeed. Sort the crap from the useful fast is a nice addition.

war1025 7y ago

I've never found anything of actual use on StackOverflow in my ~decade of doing this professionally. The only time StackOverflow provided useful answers to my questions was during my first year of programming courses in university.

Insanity 7y ago
StackOverflow is fine when learning a new language. But indeed, hardly seems to help in real-world problems.
- Msurrow 7y ago
  Thats why I put in the "know how to ask questions" part. Sure, a lot of the time you don't get an answer. And you end up figuring out stuff the hard way yourself. But then I always force myself to go back and answer my own question. It might help the next guy, but more importantly if I have to answer the question myself I need to put what I learned in writing.. and in an understandable way as well. Often the exercise of explaining it will make me understand even better.
- shantly 7y ago
  It's pretty nice for "is this thing I've encountered in this (API/library/SDK/tool) with no public issue or bugtracker a bug, or am I screwing up?" sorts of questions.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  You can often progress via reading wrong answers. “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” -Thomas Edison ...and it's so much better to learn from others' failures.
toast0 7y ago
There's some useful information there. It sometimes takes a lot of digging, especially if you're dealing in things that have existed for a long time, but change a lot (UI stuff tends to be pretty bad, questions from 5 years ago rank highly but are nearly useless because it's three frameworks ago). Also, I was able to cargo cult an applescript accessible objective C program utility (returned the color of a specified pixel from the screenbuffer) from stackoverflow without having to actually learn anything about objective C. That was mostly because the online sources to get started on objective C weren't geared towards writing a short one off program; Apple's documentation in general is hard for me to process.

ebiester 7y ago

I'll fail, because I will check the actual documentation and the source code, then make the quickest check on SO before abandoning it for source code. SO has given me obviously wrong answers enough times that I prefer the documentation first. And the ROI on learning to game Stack Overflow isn't worth it for me. :)

avgDev 7y ago

When I'm stuck I look for answers on SO, however, if I don't find answers I open a book or read documentation. I actually never had to actually ask a question on SO.